Ridiculously Absorbent Sponge Could Help Soak Up Oil Spills

Researchers at Deakin University in Australia have created an incredibly absorbent sponge material that could be used to clean future oil spills. If anything like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting oil spill happens again, this new super sponge could help prevent major damage and save billions of dollars.

"Everyone remembers the Gulf Coast disaster, but here in Australia [spills] are a regular problem, and not just in our waters," says Ying "Ian" Chen of Deakin University, an author of the research paper detailing the findings in Nature Communications. "Oil spills from trucks and other vehicles can close freeways for an entire day, again amounting to large economic losses."

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The new material was originally synthesized as an absorbent powder. With the help of researchers from Drexel University and the Missouri University of Science and Technology, this boron nitride power, which researchers call "white graphite," was broken into atomically thin sheets and then layered to make a sponge-like absorbent membrane.

(a) Photo of the freestanding BN membrane. (b) Optical transmittance of the freestanding BN membrane and inset is a photo of the BN membrane placed over a paper with a printed logo. (c) Photo of a BN membrane held in the flame in ambient air. SEM images o

Deakin University/Nature Communications

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The resulting porous material is composed of flakes that are mere nanometers thick and is capable of soaking up 33 times its own weight in oils and other solvents. The surface area of a single gram of the aerogel material can expand to roughly the size of five-and-a-half tennis courts.

A number of technologies are already used to clean up oil spills, such as various oil skimming devices and booms to prevent spread. These super-absorbent sponges could provide another tool to help environmental cleanup crews mitigate the cost and impact of the inevitable oil spill. Of course the best option is just to avoid having them as best we can.